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Socio-cultural sustainability represents one of the important pillars of sustainable development. As one of the fundamentals targeted by Saudi Vision 2030, it aims to achieve sustainable development that enhances the living standards of citizens and improves the quality of their lives. This necessitates the provision of Saudi housing that achieves socio-cultural sustainability, to ensure it reflects the culture of the Saudi society, its social characteristics, and fosters a sense of stability and belonging, while also strengthening community ties. Especially since the contemporary Saudi housing model, heavily influenced by the social and cultural backgrounds of the places from which it was imported, is an adopted model. Therefore, there is a need for socio-cultural sustainability criteria in Saudi housing, which should serve as a reference for all design, review, and evaluation work. However, establishing these standards requires initially identifying the fundamental factors from which the criteria will be derived, through a conceptual framework that includes all elements, components, references, and applications necessary for building the model. The study aims to identify the most important factors influencing the derivation of criteria for socio-cultural sustainability in Saudi housing. Hence, the paper is based on a methodology that combines the analysis of current literature and the study of elements of socio-cultural sustainability, and how they are applied in the Saudi context, particularly in the city of Riyadh. It reviewed all concepts of socio-cultural sustainability in housing, its principles, and objectives, deduced its general characteristics and attributes, and reviewed their compatibility with the characteristics of Saudi society. It also identified the pillars of socio-cultural sustainability in Saudi housing (both traditional and contemporary), to then integrate the findings to arrive at the fundamental factors for deriving standards of sociocultural sustainability for use in planning and designing housing in the city of Riyadh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]